No abstract

Rabies is acute and fatal viral encephalitis and is estimated to cause more than 50000 human deaths annually. Several cell cultures have been introduced for rabies vaccine production such as human diploid (HDC), primary hamster kidney, fetal bovine kidney, chick embryo, and continuous line of monkey kidney (VERO) cells. In this study, a novel cell line, derived from dental pulp stem cells (RHDP) was used for rabies virus propagation and was compared to MRC-5 cell line. MRC-5 showed a density higher than RHDP. The total cells obtained in a 25ml flask, was 4.2x10 6 ± 1.5x10 5 and 2.1x10 6 ± 2.6x10 5 for MRC-5 and RHDP, respectively. However, RHDP reached its maximum density sooner than MRC. The maximum cell specific growth rate of RHDP was 0.034 μ (h-1) while that of MRC was only 0.010 μ (h-1). The maximum cell division number of RHDP was 1.53 which was achieved three days after culture. Adaptation of the virus to the novel RHDP cell line was achieved after six passages of sub-culturing of the virus every 3-4 days. Rabies virus caused typical CPE and RHDP-cell-lysis in monolayers which were easily observed by microscopy. Our results suggest that RHDP could be another cell substrate candidate for rabies virus titration. The maximum specific virus production in RHDP and MRC-5 were 5.243 FFU/cell/h and 3.625 FFU/cell/h respectively; both had lower titers than those reported for Vero cell.